Parents need to make a greater effort to teach their children media literacy.

That is according to Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist Colman Noctor.

He told Newstalk Breakfast that with the way the internet works nowadays, children are more vulnerable than ever to mindlessly consuming misinformation.

"Over the last few years, the search methods of children has changed."

"It used to be that they'd search obviously they put something into Google or whatever search engine they were using, and they'd look up the term, whereas now they're just accepting whatever the algorithm is feeding them."

Newer popular phone applications such as TikTok cause users to be "much more passive" in their content consumption.

"Basically, they'll start to watch one or two things and the algorithm will work out: Okay, this is their line of interest. And the algorithm will decide what they watch next."

"If you want some information to go viral, it's about making it extreme."

Dr Noctor said he's found teenagers referencing "facts" they heard on TikTok that are not true at all, or at least require more context.

"They're not looking for reliable sources. They're looking for entertaining sources."

"If you want some information to go viral, it's about making it extreme. It's about making it controversial", he explained.

"Oftentimes, whether it's true or not, is not necessarily important to the internet either."

What you can do

So, what can we do to stop our kids consuming harmful or untrue information?

Dr Noctor says: "Ideally, you'd love regulation to play a part."

"I don't think we can wait for regulation. I don't see any appetite or will for that on behalf of the companies."

"You have to work on the user to be able to self regulate, to be able to critique."

"Asking a seven year old to be able to have critical thinking is a big ask but I do think we do need to bring in a lot more media literacy into schools."

"It will manipulate the choice architecture of people who are watching."

He said that at home it's just as important to "teach children to question material that's given to them".

"There's multiple prongs to it but I just worry that if we become equally passive to what's happening, then we allow whoever wants to manipulate algorithms to manipulate and it will manipulate the choice architecture of people who are watching."

Listen back to the full conversation here.

Main image shows kids on a mobile phone. Image: Gregory Wrona/Alamy